An artificial hand that you can mount in your sink, for when you need to wash just one hand. I just put Voltaren gel on my hand…I can’t wash that one, but I’m supposed to wash the other one.
I’m sure…of course…there are a MILLION other use cases.
-D/a
I can’t even decide if that sentiment is optimistic or cynical. The way I’ve heard it said was “a fool is born every day”, but then again I suppose there are a lot more people born nowadays.
The late, great, PT Barnum is (falsely) attributed to have said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” It has been a truism ever since.
Funny because I work for an invention company that takes individuals ideas and try to get them to market for royalties.
The washer/dryer combo, toilet seat lifter upper, universal rewards cards, and insta-tent are all ideas I’ve come across (frequently) and tried to sell people on.
Shouldn’t be much longer until we see the remote finder and back washer.
Perhaps the most common is the guy/girl who doesn’t want to share their idea. F U Dukati. (jk 
)
A kids’ gym for grown ups. Instead of the weights, stationary bikes and exercise equipment, it has trampolines, a ball pit, and bouncy houses. And you can sign up to play freeze tag.
Yes, I’m serious.
My million dollar idea is for sale if anyone is interested. I’ll let you guess the price, OBO.
Washers and dryers that send you a text message or e-mail a predetermined time before your laundry is done. Perfect for laundromats and apartment building laundry rooms. Pop in your change, hit “five minutes,” go across the street for a burrito, and be back just in time for the machine to go “ding.”
When I first saw the name, I thought it was a business idea. A take-and-bake bakery where they make dough for bread, cinnamon buns, cookies, etc. which you then pop into your own oven for that fresh-baked taste. Presumably it would be of a much higher quality and selection than the raw dough you can buy in a supermarket’s freezer section. Come to think of it, it would probably work better as a set of products sold by a supermarket’s bakery.
I’ve lost count of the ideas I’ve tried (or tried to pitch).
A few from memory:
Using talking-greeting-card technology in drug prescription labels. My great idea was to add some sort of RFID to the bottle cap, and a little programming. This way the user could press on a marked portion of the label and be told their prescription details, and when the bottle was last opened. I thought it would be a godsend for elderly/infirm to help track their prescriptions, and avoid overdose. Alas, no one seemed interested.
At one company I worked for, I wrote some software (in my spare time) that scanned certain types of designs and then generated all the lines of code for testing said design. It worked pretty well. When I demonstrated it to management, all I got was a reprimand for working on non-budgeted items, and warned to get back in my box. This was early in my career, and I was still discovering that a manager’s primary goal when overseeing subordinates is to keep them subordinate. I know better now.
I tried to build a quiet power-generator for construction sites, etc. The idea was to integrate it into a regular pickup-truck toolbox. I spent a few weekends in my garage building a prototype. I wanted it to be extremely quiet, and not obvious to passersby (for security… generators are expensive). My first model (seen here, here, and here worked pretty well. It was lined with B-Quiet (I couldn’t get enough dyna-mat for some reason) for thermal protection and sound deadening. I actually used this while camping in Yellowstone and (during the day, anyway) no one noticed. Up close it made about the same amount of noise as a dishwasher. Unfortunately, after I finished it, I discovered someone on the west coast had beat me to the idea. He had found a better way to lick the problem of keeping the heat away from the other stored contents in the box, and had included an air compressor to boot. When I tried to pitch this at construction sites, I discovered that they really want the generator to be removable, since they often send their pickups on errands (while other workers stay busy at the site). This failure was probably due to poor marketing research on my part. :smack:
I (and a friend) tried writing legal software (for lawyers). We bought the source code for a generic word-processor (from Borland) and tried to produce a system that would generate court petitions via query and response. This was back in the 80’s and the legal secretaries at the time were using cut/paste to generate new petitions. Since some of these could run to 30 pages, there was a high probability of error. Our software brought up a series of screens and queried the secretary following a more-or-less binary tree of questions. It even asked the gender of all the relevant people so it could get all the pronouns right. After gathering all the relevant info, it presented the finished product in a wordstar-ish editor for final inspection and printing. We teamed up with two lawyers who provided us with office space and advice. The first prototype impressed their secretary so much she ended up hugging us. 
She claimed she had just done 8 hours work in 15 minutes. Being naive, I told the lawyers: “Think how much money you can save your clients!”. They both laughed and said I was a little unclear on the concept of billable hours. Unfortunately, our concept never made it to market.
The opposite of a Microwave Oven. You put a room temperature can of soda in it and 15 seconds later you get it nice and chilled.
A blanket with arms in it…
and legs…n footies
oh, and a hoodie…
Like an adult baby sleeper.
While were at it, stick on a snuggle pouch for kitty…
and maybe even a doggy bed at the bottom…
yea…and…
and a Kureg coffee machine attachment…that runs on fabric solar panels…for when your at the ball game.
Oh yea and a beer tapper and mini restroom…
:dubious:
There are a few places like that around Indianapolis. The one closest to us is $7 per child over 2 and you can stay as long as you want. No outside food or drinks allowed, but you can get a pitcher of water for free (they may or may not charge for cups, depending on who’s behind the cash register). My boys LOVE to go there.
There are a few places like that around Indianapolis. The one closest to us is $7 per child over 2 and you can stay as long as you want. They only have the inflatable slides and bounce houses, but other ones around town have trampolines and lazer tag and climbing towers and such. No outside food or drinks allowed, but you can get a pitcher of water for free (they may or may not charge for cups, depending on who’s behind the cash register). My boys LOVE to go there.
Except, the idea was for grown-ups, not kids! 
Obligatory XKCD comic:
Frank has beat you to it.
The floorshark. It was to be a small automatic vacuum cleaner equipped with infrared sensors to let it avoid obstacles, keep it from bumping into walls, that sort of thing. Not having a shop or a knack for mechanics, I didn’t do anything about it.
My mistake.
This idea might already exist, but not anywhere by me up near the Frozen Tundra.
I’d like to put order screens up at gas pumps for the restaurant/fast food place that’s attached to the gas station.
I think a lot of people often stop for gas, and then will also get food at the attached restaurant because it’s convenient. This would help them by being able to place an order while their gas is pumping. They could then simply pick up their order inside (if they pay inside) or stop at the drive thru and grab it.
[Sheldon Cooper]
Fish night lights!
[/Sheldon Cooper]
